Andy Griffiths is one of Australia’s funniest and most successful writers. His books have sold over three million copies worldwide, have featured on the New York Times bestseller lists, and have won over 30 Australian children’s choice awards. He still loves coke and chips.
THE two most common questions I’m asked as a writer is where do my ideas come from and what was my very first published story.
My first story was called ‘Lost in Time’ and the idea came from the many Saturday afternoons I spent at the footy with my dad.
Although I loved the excitement of the game itself, I have to admit that it couldn’t really match the excitement of half time when dad would send me to the nearest kiosk to buy coke and chips. And having been blessed—or cursed—with a wild imagination from a very young age, it wasn’t long before a story was born.
‘Lost in Time’ was first published in Pursuit magazine in 1975 when I was thirteen years old. I was paid ten dollars for it, which in those days bought A LOT of coke and chips: all the motivation that a beginning writer needs. I haven’t stopped writing since.
And just in case you missed it, or weren’t even alive in 1975, here’s the story, exactly as it was printed then. I hope you like it, and if you don’t, well, I hope the next time you’re at the footy and you go to buy coke and chips that you’re mysteriously transported to the 100th century and that you never return!
LOST IN TIME by Andy Griffiths (at 13 years of age), published in Pursuit Magazine, No.6, 1975.
‘Gee Dad, the footy is fantastic.’
‘The best match I’ve seen all year,’ Dad said. ‘Would you like to get something to eat now?’
‘You bet,’ I said. ‘I’m as hungry as a horse!’
‘Well, here you are,’ said Dad, handing me a two dollar note. ‘Go and get a couple of drinks and some chips.’
I went down the steps of the MCG and looked up at the freshly-painted section sign that read S14.
As I pushed my way through the crowd, a strange sickening feeling suddenly passed through my whole body. It felt like a thousand needles being pushed through one side of my body and out the other. But it stopped as quickly as it had started, and I though it must have been a cold gust of wind that I’d felt.
There was the largest crowd I’d ever seen at the stand. When I was finally served, the lady at the counter looked at me impatiently. ‘I’ll have two cans of cola and three packets of chips, please,’ I asked.
‘Cola? Chips? Are you mad?’ she muttered. ‘Git out of ‘ere kid, and stop wasting me time!’
Everybody glared at me as if I was some peculiar animal.
‘Look at the board!’ the lady ordered. I looked and there I saw listed: GRONKSAMXT, BIDPEZXOVW, KADOONKOFSOLM.
I was utterly astounded by the signs, but I just had to find out what they meant.
‘Oh well,’ I said to the lady, ‘I’ll have a packet of GRONKS,’ and held out the $2 bill, but she just turned her back on me.
I moped back up the wide passage and stairs. I nearly fell over when I saw that the letters S14 had changed. They were old and faded!
I looked around at the oval, but it wasn’t football that was being played. The men had strange shields on and were using gamma-ray guns. They fired these at an object like a pair of scissors. It seemed madness to me.
It was then that I realised what had happened. I was lost in time!
I panicked trying to look for Dad. I ran outside the ground. I heard someone cry, ‘look out’ and then I blacked out.
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How much later it was I don’t know. I found myself in a tight glass tube filled with a strange-smelling gas. Faces looked down on me. I wanted to move but found I was trapped, although quite comfortable.
‘Where am I? Let me out! What do you want?’ I cried.
‘Relax,’ said a smooth voice. ‘Relax,’ said a smooth voice. ‘Relax. You’ll be all right if you co-operate. We have carried out electronic tests on you and have found that you are not one of us. You look like us but you have a primitive brain, red blood, and, strangest of all, you have growth on the top of your head.’
Then I realised that everyone I had seen before was wearing a hat. Only the man I was talking to now wasn’t, and he didn’t have a hair on his head!
‘We think you some kind of primitive man,’ he concluded.
‘I come from the 20th century!’ I cried out. ‘Which century is this?’
He answered calmly. ‘This is …’ He paused. ‘This is the 100th century!’
‘Could you get me back to the 20th century?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘It might be too far for our time machine to go twice. But before you go anywhere, you must tell me about the 20th century.’
I told him everything that I could think of.
Some hours later I was instructed to put on a pair of astroboots for a visit to “Ernie”.
‘ “Ernie?”’ I questioned.
‘The time machine. Got your boots on? Good. You jump first.’
The astroboots propelled me along in the air. We arrived at “Ernie”. The bubble-shaped chamber stood in a room full of electronic controls, levers, and switches. There was just about everything an electronics enthusiast could wish for.
‘Okay,’ said the professor. ‘Now where did you want to go?’
‘The 20th century,’ I started. ‘1975, November 22nd, 4pm, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.’
All the time I had been saying this the professor had been flicking switches, pulling levers, and setting controls.
‘Step into the glass chamber. Get ready for limageonatarlunar. 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … GO!’
As I felt a strange feeling of speed, I thought I heard the professor say, ‘Well, that one proved successful. Who should I bring back next?’
But then, the next thing I remember was being pushed to the front of the crowd at the snack stand.
‘Two cans of cola and three packets of chips, please,’ I said.
Andy Griffiths’ latest book is called Pencil of Doom!, the second book in his brand new Schooling Around series. You can find out more about him and his books at http://www.andygriffiths.com.au
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
